Art Shows on TV & Subway Drawings

Above, on the train to work in the morning, 5 minute drawing.
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All are ink in Moleskine sketchbook

Above, waiting for the train on the platform, 3 minute drawing

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Above, people on the train to work, probably 3 minutes each (my trip is only 13 minutes)

I’m sooooo tired tonight. I think I used up all my brain juice at work today which seemed more intense than usual, multi-tasking, solving problems, meeting needs, responding to questions, ticking one thing after another off the bottom of my to-do list as more things piled on top of it. At the end of the day I had 48 work email messages I still hadn’t dealt with yet, some left over from Monday. I get about a hundred a day, most needing me to do something. Thank goodness tomorrow is Thursday and Friday starts my weekend. How did I ever manage a 5-day work week? It’s only 8:15 and it feels like 10 p.m. so I’m going to go watch some mindless TV and then go to bed.

Art History Shows
I’ve TiVo’d and have been gradually watching the Simon Schama series, The Power of Art, on PBS. It’s really weird. Each week a different seedy-looking British actor portrays another famous artist (most of whom weren’t British) while Schama narrates bits of history, trying to make everything sound as lurid as possible. The actors dramatize the artists’ darkest, most desparate moments of depravity, criminality, mental illness, illicit affairs, and bizarre behavior, focusing not on their most famous work, but the work they were most infamous for. It’s kind of like the Jerry Springer/National Enquirer/tabloid TV show version of the world of art. Some of the scenes are really disturbing such as Van Gogh squeezing tube after tube of brilliant oil paint into his mouth and swallowing it. Yechh!

I’ve also TiVo’d a CPB show, “Art of the Western World” with another British guy narrating the history of art, period by period, with just the opposite approach–a bit on the “good for you” but boring side. It was originally made as a college course, I think. I love my TiVo, by the way. It’s easy to use and I can set it to record every episode of a show with one click of the remote, and search for shows about art and painting and click to record them (which is how I found these programs). One more excellent program is American Masters on PBS. Recent episodes have featured David Hockney: “The Color of Music” and John James Audubon: “Drawn from Nature.”

Painting How-To Shows
Another show I’ve been enjoying is Your Brush with Nature. Each week the host, Heiner Hertling, paints a plein air oil painting on site in different locations. It’s not corny like some painting shows and he’s a good teacher, thinking out loud as he tackles the challenges of painting outdoors. There are two watercolor painting shows I record: Terry Madden’s Watercolor Workshop and Gary Spetz’s Painting Wild Places. I’ve gotten a little tired of Spetz because he does SO MUCH detailed masking with masking fluid, but both Madden and Spetz make attractive paintings and demonstrate techniques worth knowing about. For acrylics, Jerry Yarnell demonstrates how to paint what look like traditional oil paintings but using acrylics. I was having a really hard time figuring out acrylics and watching his show really helped to understand. I tried watching the ubiquitous Bob Ross oil painting shows on PBS but just couldn’t stomach them because they were way too gimicky and not at all about painting what you see (“here’s how to paint happy little trees”). I do love his voice though.

I’ve recently discovered an art video rental company like Netflix only for art videos called Smartflix. I haven’t rented from them yet (it’s a little expensive–$10 a video rental) but it seems like it might be worth it–cheaper than taking classes (though without the teacher feedback on your own work) –to see masters at work whose books I’ve read but seeing them work adds another whole dimension.